Live Arts

In the live arts, the Museum establishes a meeting point between its propositions in this realm and the proverbial white cube so often used in art exhibitions, but from which the live arts have been artificially expelled. By doing so it reveals that the genealogy of the live arts has been closely linked to that of the plastic avant-gardes since their very origins. The Museum's live arts programming, which includes theatre, music and sound art, is thus seen to bear a close connection to the Museum's theoretical discourse. Museo Reina Sofía also collaborates with the most important contemporary festivals in Spain, providing a venue for some of their performances. The Museum engages in continuous dialogue with them and plays a role in the formation of their discourses.

Results

This seminar views the archive as a present-day political driving force striving to define mechanisms that do not cancel out the dynamic and transversal collectives they originate from. Via two tables for discussion and public presentations, the seminar will debate institutional, technological and economic models that comprise different forms of archive.

Independent theatre groups in Spain revamped the stage from popular culture, university classrooms, alternative circuits and touring as a form of representation. As a whole, they represent a key chapter in the history of 20th-century theatre in Spain, and this seminar, integrated into a broader network project, looks to remedy the absence of debates and studies around this crucial subject.

Contemporary Cinema in Latin America

Cinema and video
Film series

This film series presents a panoramic view of recent independent film from Latin America, while also introducing a new screening area in the Museo – the transformation of the outdoor terraces into a new open-air cinema. Scene Games offers an interpretation of the latest films from Latin American cinema, barely seen in Europe, where theatricality is the key element in approaching reality.

The international conference Politics, State Power and the Making of Art History in Europe after 1945 explores the ways political power seeks to shape and influence the activities of art historians, art critics, museum professionals and cultural institutions in order to control the understanding of art and artistic heritage from 1945 to the present.

June 14 - July 5, 2015 - Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 12:00 p.m.

Dramaturgy in Movement

Live Arts
Theatre
Conference

The Limitless Place is the first collaboration between Museo Reina Sofía and the Centro Dramático Nacional (National Drama Centre) and Teatro Pradillo, with the latter conducting a programme of performances, lectures and encounters. It comes about from the desire to question the forms and language of the stage with the will to think about the theatre we actually want; what is, in short, the world we strive to build our society upon.

Master Lecture

Seminars and conferences
Lecture

Started in 2010, the Museo Reina Sofía’s programme of master lectures marks the beginning, or end, of the annual academic activity conducted in the Museo, comprising a series of MAs, study programmes, debate groups and research residencies, run in collaboration with different universities.

Audiovisual traces between dance and performance, 1963–1986

Cinema and video
Film series

A debate runs through a whole century of images of bodies in movement: that which refers to the correspondence between these bodies in live performance (on stage, in the gallery or museum) and in film. Through this question, the aim is to elucidate whether the audiovisual record of practices in which the body is at the centre – contemporary dance and artistic performance – “faithfully” reflects its apparent inherent truth.

Resonance is a series of sound interventions for a specific site, activating the acoustic and historical space in the Museo Reina Sofía’s Sabatini Building. The programme refrains from using the auditorium and electronic amplification, which means guest artists, musicians and composers will present a series of pieces that set in motion alternative contexts for sound and contemporary music.

Creative, precarious and intercultural

Seminars and conferences
Conference

What are innovation and originality in diverse times? How does the precarious artist participate in the so-called economies of creativity? This lecture sees the Argentinian philosopher and cultural critic Néstor García Canclini analyse the redistributions and alternatives to creativity that come together in a new contemporary framework of institutions, movements, audiences and networks.

The Museo will once again be taking part in the celebration of International Museum Day (IMD), held on 18 May, contributing, on 16, 17 and 18 May, with dance activities, workshops and a programme of guided tours that aim to offer plural viewpoints of its Collection and temporary exhibitions like the remarkable White Fire. The Kunstmuseum Basel Modern Collection.

Museum of Solidarity

Seminars and conferences
Conference

Founded by intellectuals such as Mario Pedrosa, Dore Ashton, Carlo Levi and the Spanish critic José María Moreno Galván, this institution represented a brief experience that, while connecting Chile and Palestine, Senegal and the spaces of resistance in the Western world between 1971 and 1973, was used to seek alternative references during the Cold War. This talk by its director, Claudia Zaldívar, introduces its history and recovery.

In relation to the exhibition Not Yet. On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, this series of lectures offers a context for the discussion on the reframing of documentary culture in the 1970s and 1980s. The programme brings together international scholars to debate some of the key aspects of the exhibition from different perspectives.

Yasmil Raymond in conversation with João Fernandes

Seminars and conferences
Conference

This encounter serves as an introduction to the exhibition in the Museo devoted to North American artist Carl Andre (Quincy, Massachusetts, 1935) and looks to provide perspective on an artistic career that spans the second half of the 20th century and which has been historiographically defined by its generational affiliation with the time Minimalism embarked upon the redefinition of sculpture.

This seminar sets out to rewrite the history of post-war art in Europe, traditionally presented as the disjointed amalgamation of art scenes divided into antagonistic blocs. By deconstructing national limits and articulating a transversal debate, this programme presents a divergent history, whilst also identifying new voices and positions.

To mark International Dance Day, the Museo calls on all those interested in taking part, for 10 minutes, in the reinterpretation of one of the most emblematic pieces in the history of contemporary dance: Rosas danst Rosas.